Dutch court jails Somali pirates

A DUTCH court has sentenced nine Somalis to four-and-a-half years in prison for hijacking an Iranian ship in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden last year.

"The suspects have been found guilty of piracy and sentenced to four-and-a-half years," the Rotterdam District Court said in a statement on Friday.

The men had hijacked Iranian vessel "Feddah" and held the crew hostage for four months before Dutch marines noticed the ship and sought to get on board to inspect it on April 2 last year.

The pirates opened fire at the marines, forcing them to shoot back.

Two pirates were killed in the shoot-out and 16 others were arrested in the incident.

Seven of the 16 men were released shortly afterwards, while the others, aged between 18 to 38, were brought to the Netherlands to stand trial.

The judges, however, rejected an attempted murder charge against the Somalis, saying they could not determine who shot at the marines during the operation.

The first Somali pirates to be tried in Europe were jailed for five years by a Rotterdam court in 2010 after they attacked a Turkish cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden. The Netherlands has universal jurisdiction for alleged piracy crimes.

After a spike at the start of the last decade, successful pirate attacks on commercial vessels sailing off the Horn of Africa have diminished, deterred by an international deployment of warships to patrol the coast.

Last year some 151 attacks were recorded, while only 29 took place so far this year, said the latest statistics from Operation Atalanta, the European Union's anti-piracy deployment to the region.

Pirates are in control of six ships and hold an estimated 156 crew members hostage. More than 1000 alleged pirates are awaiting trial or have been sentenced in 20 countries.